From 2016 to 2020, China invested 68.76 billion overall in new agrochemical facilities, capable of producing 653,000 tons of active ingredients, 918,000 tons of intermediates, 531,000 tons of formulations, and 9,700 tons of other products including adjuvants, antidotes, and synergists. As a result of China’s environmental and safety rectification and industrial upgrading, 17.66% and 25.07% of the capital went into northwestern or northern regions, and the East China region has access to 22.83% of the investments, owing to its diverse supply chain, advantageous infrastructure and human resource. As the top agrochemical production province, Jiangsu had put forward a provincial plan to rectify chemical industry as early as 2007, but the concrete measures were enforced since 2016 aimed to merger and upgrade or cancel the existing chemical industrial park/zone, as well as eliminate chemical factories outside the designated chemical industrial park/zone, which were and especially accelerated after the explosion in March 2019. By the end of October 2020, 14 chemical parks and 15 chemical concentration zones have been designated, but only 50% to 60% of chemical producers have moved in and the rest of producers would be forced to relocate or shut down. As for Shandong , the second-largest producing province, 85 chemical industry parks were announced and 34% of chemical producers were moved in and the number of chemical producers decreased from 6,094 in 2018 to 4,580 in 2020. Currently, over 20 provinces have enforced similar measures and it has become an unavoidable tendency that chemical producers to relocate to industrial parks. Since China has not yet established environmental protection regulations specific to Yellow River basin, upstream areas have become perfect destinations for migratory producers. Looking back on the annual investment, the growth in 2019 and 2020 was remarkable, mainly because increasing relocation/investment plans had been announced a

On November 1, 2021, China began to enact the agricultural standard “NY/T 3831-2021 Organic Water-Soluble Fertilizers-General Regulations”. In addition to the definition, classification and general rules on the raw materials, nutrient/harmful contents and label, NY/T 3831 first defined that this category of agricultural input is the result of organic raw materials and contains biostimulant, resolving the ambiguous legal status and offering conceptual ideas for the pre-marketing procedures for biostimulants.

According to the statistic from the Brazilian National Union of Plant Protection Products Industry(Sindveg) released on November 25, 2021, 209.3 million hectares were treated with pesticides in the third quarter of 2021, an increase of 8.7% compared to the same period last year.

On November 1, 2021, the South Korean National Institute of Environmental Research(NIER) invited a 20-day consultation on the amendment to the department rules, “Regulation on the Scope and Method for Preparing Application Data on Biocidal Substance and Product Approvals”. The current version was published on January 26, 2021, in the form of NEIR Notice 2021-7, which specified all the endpoints of test data and items of general data in the form of mandatory or conditional required data, criteria for exemption, additional test data, acceptance of testing methodology and testing institutes, as well as methods for preparing this data.

On September 23, 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs released a positioning paper regarding the regulatory definition of body-use mosquito repellents, which were increasingly circulated on the market in different forms such as repelling patches, lotion, liquid, and wristbands containing botanical ingredients.

On September 27, 2021, the South Korea National Institute of Environmental Research released Announcement 64 of 2021 to update the list of low-risk biocidal substances and 4 substances were newly included, namely Glycerol, sodium hydrogen carbonate, calcium carbonate, and sodium chloride.

On September 22, 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs issued announcement 475 to announce the designation of 2 new testing institutes and expand the test scope of 2 existing labs, as well as amend administrative information of 5 existing labs.

On September 6, 2021, the South Korean online chemical management system CHEMP disclosed the latest instruction from the Environmental Ministry, clarifying the formality deadline for 5 types of existing biocidal active substances which need to be approved by December 31, 2022, including disinfectants, algaecides, rodenticides, insecticides, and repellents.

On September 3, 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs issued Announcement 468 to approve 26 new pesticides of 14 active ingredients first registered in China, including Nippon Soda’s Picarbutrazox fungicide, FMC’s Bixlozone, and a dozen biological pesticides developed by domestic companies.